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Monday, October 19, 2009

Growing Up in the Ozarks

I grew up in the heart of the Ozarks, surrounded by a time and culture that has slowly ebbed away. It was in a small place called Mammoth, Missouri. It's south of Gainesville, Missouri, and just a few miles north of the Missouri/ Arkansas state-line. Literally, it was in Ozark County, and you can’t get any more Ozark than that.

Living in today’s culture, is a totally different time or era than when I was growing up. I am really not that old; I’m only 44. But, times have changed so much. Many people spend hours occupying their time in endeavors that would have been foreign to me. I’ll admit, sometimes I catch myself in trivial pursuits that really have no eternal value. This could be surfing the Internet, texting for hours, and even watching TV. It does sound somewhat hypocritical for me mentioning the Internet, since this is a blog…and it’s posted on the Internet. But as I grew up, TV was sometimes a luxury. We lived so low in the valley that TV reception was not that viable. Therefore, we didn’t have a TV for years. We listened to the radio. We also spent many of those hours we could have been watching TV and did other things. Though at times I complained about not having TV, I was saved from fruitless hours and rewarded with memories I cherish, such as:

Going visiting…that’s what we called it. We didn’t need to call ahead of time or make a special time on the calendar. We would just show up…

Sleeping with the windows open and positioning for the perfect breeze through the screened windows…

Sleeping with the roar of the attic fan on high…

The smell of the fresh & humid air as it saturated the sheets at night…

The chorus of tree frogs, bullfrogs, crickets, and whip-poor-wills chanting in the night…

The huffs of the hoot owls and the haunting shrill of the screech owl’s phantom call…

The yelps of the coyotes and the barking yaps of the gray fox…

The cry of the bobcat or the scream of a mountain lion/ panther echoing on the banks of Lick Creek which sounds like a lady convulsing in terror…

Finding and flipping the perfect 4 to 5 day old cow pile that held the juiciest night crawlers for fishing…

Stepping on thorns and old nails and soaking my foot in kerosene because Granny said so…

Helping my dad load the old aluminum V-bottom boat into the pickup bed and going to Liner Creek on Norfork Lake…

Watching the spring floods inundate the Possum Walk Creek & Bridge...

The fear of failure I felt… before I pulled the trigger on my rifle and dropped my first deer…

The pride of trapping my first gray fox…

The panic I felt when it came back to life in my hands…

The relief I felt when my dad helped me put it out of its misery for the second time…

The dread I felt in seeing my first skunk in a trap…

The joy I felt in the sense of knowledge in skinning my own animals on the trap line…

The wonder of seeing a herd of 60 white-tailed deer in the fields in front of the Mammoth Church…

The early morning breakfasts at Granny Anderson’s saucering hot coffee, eating biscuits, twice toasted toast, soakie, greasy gravy, black-eyed gravy, fried eggs, bacon, and sausage all covered in flour gravy made from grease…basically…a lot of grease…By the way, if you haven’t “saucered your coffee or had “soakie”,” you haven’t lived…

The mornings she spent reading to me from the Bible and the afternoons she spent reading to me The Ozark County Times, The Baxter Bulletin, or The History of Baxter County. Then, she would talk about the people she read about or how we were related…

Her lunches of black-eyed peas, rice with sugar, or cooked cabbage…all with cornbread…

The summer days I spent at her front porch and swatting flies…

Covering cousins up in the fallen maple leaves…pretending they were in graves…and jumping out and screaming like it was the Resurrection Morning…

Listening to KTLO Radio out of Mountain Home, Arkansas, to hear the most important news of the day…the hospital report, listing all the names of the people who were admitted and released, and the list of the people who died in the area…

Going to brush harbor meetings and using funeral home fans to keep cool…

Swimming at the Possum Walk Bridge, ole' Baptizing Hole, the Big Rock, or the Hoggard Hole…

Skidding down the icy cemetery hill on sheets of plastic & inner-tubes…

New Year’s Eve hike & camp-outs…

Playing football for Gainesville and always hoping for the next game to be a win...(long story)

The glee of watching spot-lighters chasing deer in the field in front of our house…knowing the game warden, Ralph McNair, was watching them from a hay barn...

And the work…

Hauling & splitting wood…

Feeding the chickens & protecting them from the coons…

Picking up rocks…gardening…picking up rocks…

Picking up beer bottles & beer cans on T Highway because Baxter County, Arkansas, was a dry county until 1978. Therefore, our road was the shortest distance between the honky-tonks on the Missouri / Arkansas state line on Highway 201 North & Highway 5 North…

This whole list thing could go on….and on.

Although no time or era is perfect, in the past or present, these times have helped to mold and form me into the person I am today. Though I cannot go back, I still hold these memories in my heart. At times, I am quickly swept away by some sight, smell, taste, word, or phrase to a little place called Mammoth. After all these years, it is still part of my essence. It is my sampling & experience of the Ozark’s History.

3 comments:

Rhonda Lewis Newton
said...

I grew up about 5 miles from Vince Anderson and I loved, understood and appreciated everything he was writing about. I am grateful for the priviledge I had of being a country girl in the Ozarks. I rode the school bus with Vince. He was a sweet little boy. I am glad to see him preserving some of our history, through this blog. Thanks. Rhonda Lewis Newton

I didn't realize it at the time, but look back now and know how fortunate I was to have moved from the city (Derby, Kansas)in 1971 to the small town of Hardenville, Missouri. At first it was a REAL culture shock. Life was SO different in the country then the city and I have such great memories all because I moved to the Ozarks. I learned a new way of life. More simple, less complicated and more rewarding. Imade some life long friends. Learned SO many new things. I got to milk cows,chase after pigs when they got out, dig potato's out of the garden, pick up walnuts to sell for school clothes, swam in a creek or at the river, went floating on inner tubes, did the church hayrides, learned to shake the cream off the milk in pint sized jars to make butter, went toHootin and Hollarin, came to love beans, fried potato's and cornbread. Met some of the nicest people I've ever met in my entire life and can say that I'm really glad I got the chance to grow up in the Ozarks. Life seemed so much simpler back then. I still have to laugh when I think back to the days we left our keys in the igntion and didn't lock our doors at night. Some things have changed but one thing that hasn't is that people from the country are down to earth, hard working, kind hearted and one of a kind. It doesn't get any better then that!

yes those were the days, I too grew up in Ozark county close to the Douglas county line near Rockbridge and Brixey store. I moved from L.A.Ca. at the age of 10 to a small 10acre farm in the sticks, the house picture you show is quite similar to my parents home where I was rasied. Yes times were slower back then, but the older one gets I am 53 now,the faster time flies. My mom still lives on the farm . Thanks for the memories.